1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to surveillance systems including wireless security devices, and, more particularly, to the installation of surveillance systems including wireless security devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Surveillance systems, also known as security systems, are known to include wireless security devices, such as wireless motion detectors, wireless door sensors, wireless window sensors, wireless smoke detectors, etc., for monitoring a secured area of space. The wireless devices each transmit a unique identifier, along with any state change or supervisory data, to a receiver within the system. The unique identifiers are used to verify that a transmission from a wireless device actually belongs to and is being received by the intended security system. Thus, each wireless device in use by a security system must be made known to the system by its unique identifier.
It is a goal of the security system manufacturer to make the process of associating a particular wireless device with its unique identifier as simple and as quick as possible for the installer. A traditional approach to establishing a connection within the system between a wireless device and its unique identifier has been to manually enter a series of digits of the unique identifier into a system controller. A human installer places the security system into a special programming mode and enters the unique identifier for each device that is to be used for a particular installation. The installer then typically walks to each wireless device in turn and performs a physical test of each device in order to ensure that the unique identifiers have been entered properly. A problem with this approach is that the process of manually entering each digit of the unique identifier information is time-consuming and subject to installer error.
Another approach to establishing a connection within the system between a wireless device and its unique identifier has been to place the security system into a special programming mode referred to as a “learn mode” of operation. The human installer walks to each wireless device in turn and physically “trips” the wireless device in order to cause the wireless device to transmit a unique identification signal to the system controller. Thereby, the system controller is notified that the currently transmitting device is one that is intended to be used in the system. After all devices have been thus “learned”, the installer then typically walks again to each wireless device in turn and performs a physical test of each device in order to ensure that the unique identifiers have been properly received and recorded. A problem with this second approach is that the installer must visit each wireless device twice—first to physically trip the device to learn its identification information, and second to perform the verification test on each of the devices. These two round trips to each of the wireless devices occupy a large amount of the installer's total installation time.
Another problem with both of the above approaches is that the installer must physically visit the structure or area for which the security system is being installed before any of the wireless security devices can be configured and made operational to any degree. Thus, the customer may be forced to wait a considerable period of time for the arrival of the installer after the delivery of additional wireless security devices before the customer can derive any benefit from the additional wireless devices.
What is needed in the art is a wireless security system that can be installed without the installer having to manually enter identification information for wireless devices or having to visit each wireless device in order to cause the wireless device to emit an identification signal and thus be configured into the system.